National reports contend that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement forces have been withdrawn from Chicago after setbacks in court and ferocious opposition locally, Critics said that amounted to a retreat.
If ICE persists in what appear to be efforts to build a detention center on the Oregon coast at Newport, it could be setting itself up for much the same end result.
For evidence, you need look no further than the remarkable public hearing held Nov. 12 by Newport’s city council. (You can watch it on two downloadable video clips.) Over two and a half hours, dozens of speakers from an audience of hundreds talked about recent military and ICE actions at the port city. Not a single one, including council members, a county commissioner and a state representative, had anything good to say about the prospective ICE arrival or associated actions. To call opposition in Newport “overwhelming” would be an understatement.
The first point to make about this is that not much is known about ICE’s plans. Many details remain sketchy, and city officials said that as of the meeting, no one from the Department of Homeland Security (the umbrella department for ICE) had contacted the city about what may be coming.
People in town did discover on November 9 that a Coast Guard rescue helicopter — Newport has a substantial Coast Guard base — had been moved to North Bend, almost 100 miles to the south. People who live in different environments might not see that as a big deal, but in and near Newport it is.
Speakers at Newport City Hall not only complained about the loss but warned that people will die in the ocean because of it — saying recent experience shows that’s not a matter of if, but when. People who fall from a boat into the ocean cannot survive in the amount of time a helicopter would need to fly from North Bend. One woman making that case said her life had been saved by the chopper. A court case, challenging whether the move violates federal law, seems likely.
One speaker from a local group called Newport Fishermen’s Wives said, “this isn’t just our opinions on things, this is life and death.”
The helicopter had been located at Newport’s city airport. What has this to do with ICE? The answer appears to be that the agency intends to set up a large detention center there.
It hasn’t specifically yet said that it plans to do that, and has been remarkably uncommunicative generally with people in the area. But evidence has been accumulating. The city had been contacted by a federal contractor considering leasing four acres near the airport to “support federal operations;” that proposal was later withdrawn, the city said. Local officials said septic companies are being solicited in the area looking at prospects for handling large volumes of human waste.
On Nov. 10, the city said in a statement that city officials “were made aware of information that the US Department of Homeland Security is in the process of evaluating locations along the Oregon coast for a potential U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) immigration facility, and the Newport Municipal Airport has been identified as a possible location for this facility. … Efforts to contact DHS representatives by phone and email have not received a response at the time of this release.”
State Rep. David Gomberg, D-Otis, said, “nobody will tell us what the plan is or if there is a plan.”
The response from people in the city and the region was explosive.
Some of the complaints were about ICE and its practices generally. One woman said “they are not who we represent as a county.”
Many spoke up for the area’s substantial Latino community, which accounts for important numbers of employees in hospitality, restaurant, shipping and fishing, construction and other industries. Many spoke of an atmosphere of fear and intimidation.
One Latina woman said she spoke “for those of us who are too afraid to be in this place … Our families would only have two options. Option 1, not go to work, not send their children to school, not take their children and families to medical appointments even when those are necessary, and to not go out to buy food and medicine. The second option would be for families to have to leave the county.”
Others warned that the ICE presence (and, possibly, actions on the streets) could create economic and social havoc. Some said they have heard from regular visitors to the area — which relies heavily on tourist trade — that they would quit coming to the area if an ICE center were located there.
A sense of something approaching not simply disagreement but desperation overlay much of the meeting.
Watch what happens next in Newport and see if you don’t think ICE will break its pick on places like Newport, if it presses hard enough.
This column originally appeared in the Oregon Capital Chronicle.
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